1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus, and more particularly, to an inkjet recording apparatus comprising a wiper blade which cleans a nozzle surface in which a nozzle for ejecting ink is formed.
2. Description of the Related Art
An inkjet recording apparatus (inkjet printer) is known, which comprises an inkjet head (liquid droplet ejection head) having an arrangement of a plurality of nozzles (liquid droplet ejection ports) which eject liquid, such as an ink, in the form of liquid droplets, and which forms images on a recording medium by ejecting the ink (ink droplets) from the nozzles toward a recording medium while causing the inkjet head and the recording medium to move relatively to each other.
The inkjet recording apparatus ejects ink from the nozzles toward a recording medium conveyed in the near vicinity of the nozzles, and hence the ink ejected onto the recording medium may bounce back and adhere to the nozzle surface, a portion of the ejected ink may remain on the nozzle surface, and such dirt as paper dust from the conveyed recording medium may adhere to the nozzle surface. When the nozzle surface becomes soiled in this way, then ejection defects arise in that the direction of flight of the ink droplets ejected from the nozzles is bent, or the nozzles become blocked and ink can no longer be ejected from the nozzles. In view of the circumstances, various methods have been proposed for cleaning the nozzle surface.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-154670 discloses an inkjet recording apparatus using a recording head which performs recording by ejecting liquid. In this inkjet recording apparatus, the front end section of a cleaning device for cleaning the liquid ejection unit of the recording head is curved in accordance with the nozzle surface of the recording head, and this cleaning device sweeps away ink adhering to the periphery of the ejection unit of the recording head. At least a portion of the cleaning device is formed by a member capable of guiding the swept ink in a prescribed direction in such a manner that, if a polyolefin fiber body is used as a cleaning member, for example, then the direction of the fibers and the direction in which the cleaning member guides the ink are substantially the same, whereby the ink swept from the recording head can be moved swiftly to a prescribed position.
However, according to the technology described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-154670, cleaning of the recording head is performed by using a wiper blade as a cleaning device, and in particular if the wiper blade is shorter than the nozzle section of the recording head, a portion of the ink remaining in the vicinity of the contact section between the recording head and the wiper blade spills out onto either side of the wiper blade and remains on the nozzle surface. When ink remains on the nozzle surface in this way, a problem may arise in that the residual ink covers the peripheral regions of the nozzles and can give rise to ejection abnormalities.
In particular, when a long recording head is wiped in the conveyance direction of the paper, a long wiper blade which covers the whole of the nozzle section of the long recording head is required, and it is not easy to make the wiper blade be in contact with the recording head uniformly over the whole length of the long recording head, and wiping omissions leaving residual ink occur, which may give rise to ejection abnormalities as described above.
Moreover, in a mode where the recording head is wiped by moving it to a position outside the recording region, a wiper blade and a maintenance cap, and the like, are arranged in alignment outside the recording region, and hence there is also a problem in that the size of the apparatus increases in accordance with the length of the wiper blade, and the like.